‘But if,—­but if—!  Think of her condition, Tom!’

’You would have to think of your own, if you were to attempt to tell her to leave him.’

‘That means that you are afraid of her.’

’It certainly means that I should be very much afraid if I thought of taking such a liberty.  If I believed it to be my duty, I hope that I would do it.’

‘You are her clergyman.’

’Certainly.  I christened her child.  I preach to her twice every Sunday.  And if she were to die I should bury her.’

‘Is that all?’

‘Pretty nearly;—­except that I generally dine at the house once a week.’

‘Is there nothing further confided to you than that?’

’If she were to come to me for advice, then it would be my duty to give her what advice I thought to be best; and then—­’

‘Well, then?’

’Then I should have to make up my mind,—­which I have not done at present,—­I should have to make up my mind, not as to his guilt, for I believe him to be innocent, but as to the expediency of a separation till a jury should have acquitted him.  But I am well aware that she won’t come to me; and from little words which constantly drop from her, I am quite sure that nothing would induce her to leave her husband but a direct command from himself.’

‘You might do it through him.’

‘I am equally sure that nothing would induce him to send her away.’

But such a conviction as this was not sufficient for Mr. Smirkie.  He was alive to the fact,—­uncomfortably alive to the fact,—­that the ordinary life of gentle-folk in England does not admit of direct clerical interference.  As a country clergyman, he could bestow his admonitions upon his poorer neighbours; but upon those who were well-to-do he could not intrude himself unasked, unless, as he thought, in cases of great emergency.  Here was a case of very great emergency.  He was sure that he would have courage for the occasion if Folking were within the bounds of Plum-cum-Pippin.  It was just the case in which counsel should be volunteered;—­in which so much could be said which would be gross impertinence from others though it might be so manifest a duty to a clergyman!  But Mr. Bromley could not be aroused to a sense either of his duty or of his privileges.  All this was sad to Mr. Smirkie, who regretted those past days in which, as he believed, the delinquent soul had been as manifestly subject to ecclesiastical interference as the delinquent body has always been to the civil law.

But with Julia, who was to be his wife, he could be more imperative.  She was taught to give thanks before the throne of grace because she had been spared the ignominy of being married to a man who could not have made her his wife, and had had an unstained clergyman of the Church of England given to her for her protection.  For with that candour which is so delightful, and so common in these days, everything had been told to Mr. Smirkie,—­how her young heart had for a time turned itself towards her cousin, how she had been deceived, and then how rejoiced she was that by such deceit she had been reserved for her present more glorious fate.  ‘And won’t Mr. Bromley speak to her?’ Julia asked.